Regional workshop “Partnerships for Innovations in Development”
The regional workshop “Partnerships for Innovations in Development” took place in Yerevan, Armenia (31 October - 1 November 2018) to share practices in this area, including among Russia-funded UNDP projects.
Participants from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and UNDP Istanbul Regional Hub shared their experience on promoting innovations in development, discussed challenges and future plans of innovation related work. Topics presented at the workshop included innovation ecosystem in UNDP Armenia; electronic election system in Kyrgyzstan; innovative solutions for economic empowerment of rural communities in Tajikistan; Russian expertise sharing with the programme countries; innovations in UNDP Moldova; UNDP support for the development of Uzbekistan national innovation strategy and youth start-up programme, and others. Workshop participants also presented the current activities and future vision for the role and possibilities of young people in the world today, digital skills and employment prospects of youth. The participants also discussed the national demand for support to youth/innovation related work and other areas under the Trust Fund Youth Window financed by the Russian Government.
Two Russian experts were engaged as resource persons for the workshop. Kirill Ilnitsky, Head of the Information Support and Coordination Department at the Moscow Innovation Agency, shared the experience on the creating innovation infrastructure at city level, and Artem Shadrin, Head of the Innovative Development Department in the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, presented the innovation agenda and state support in Russia. The representatives of the Government of Armenia outlined the Armenia’s vision on innovation.
Workshop participants visited the TUMO Center for creative technologies where the delegation was acquainted with the Center’s activities on out-of-school education. The two-day seminar was followed by the “Rethinking Innovation: Tech for Climate” event where the partners from the Government, development, private and tech sectors were presented with the start-ups developed to tackle Climate Change challenges and supported by the Climate Change Tech Accelerator. The event was organized by the UNDP ImpactAim Venture Accelerator jointly with ISTC Foundation, Founders Institute Yerevan and Enterprise Incubator Foundation.
The participants agreed to continue the series of the knowledge sharing workshops for the UNDP project teams.
The workshop was organized by UNDP Country Office in Armenia and the regional project “Knowledge Management & Capacity building in the Russia-UNDP Partnership”.